| Abstract [eng] |
Most studies of mentalization in the context of parenting are carried out with parents raising their biological children, therefore it is unclear if implications of mentalization are the same for foster parents. This study aims to explore the links between early traumatic experience, mentalization and parenting practices of foster mothers raising children from 6 to 11 years and compare them to the same links in a group of biological mothers. The participants were 46 foster and adoptive mothers and on-call carers and 122 biological mothers. Early traumatic experience was assessed with Childhood Experiences Questionnaire (Gervinskaitė-Paulaitienė & Barkauskienė, 2015), mentalization with Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (Luyten, Mayes, Nijssens, & Fonagy, 2017), parenting practices – with Alabama Parenting Questionnaire – Short Form (Elgar, Waschbusch, Dadds, & Sigvaldason, 2007). Results have shown that foster mothers did not differ from biological mothers in respect to early traumatic experience, mentalization and parenting, but the links between sub-constructs in some cases were not identical. However, for both groups better mentalization was related to less traumatic experience and more effective parenting, and prementalizing was most predictive of parenting. Prementalizing also mediated the relationship between early traumatic experience and negative parenting practices. |
